


A Victory Cry

by noctecat



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Set Post-NXT Episode 483
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 18:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17330519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noctecat/pseuds/noctecat
Summary: "I am not a bad person," Johnny finally said, with such conviction, it was almost cute. As if saying it out loud would make it unequivocally true, even against all evidence otherwise. Ciampa smiled."Who ever said you were?" He responded.





	A Victory Cry

He would go searching, Ciampa knew. Knock on every door he thought might open for him. Aleister’s wouldn't, of course, unless to nail him with a kick hard enough to send him tumbling head over heels down the hall. Dream, maybe, would treat him to an over dramatic sigh and some faux sympathy for a while, but the odd mutual respect cultivated between him and Black would mean Johnny would eventually be told to talk to the housemaid. Ricochet would give him a pitiful look, but stay on his guard; he would be lucky if Pete Dunne presented him with so much as a glare. He wouldn’t get a word out of Cole, Strong, Fish and O’Reilly past their laughter, while Sane, Kai and Shirai would quietly, politely turn him away, but when even the kindest, most naively forgiving group in the company couldn't stand to look at you for longer than five minutes, it hurt worse than the ugliest, nastiest blow to the ribs no matter how delicately they tried to dress it up. Candice - the wife - would let him in, but even she would interrogate him like a stranger in her home -  _'Why, Johnny? Why? Why?'_ - and Johnny wouldn't be able to answer a single one of her questions because not even he, Ciampa knew, recognized himself now.

And each rejection, each mockery made of him, each shunning by those he thought once to be friends or allies, would lead him to the last door; the one he knew would open, without even needing to knock. But he would, anyway, because for all he had done, Johnny was never anything if not _polite._

The first knock was soft, unsure. The second and third, following a moment's worth of hesitation later, were much more certain. Ciampa took his time ambling over to the door, relaxed. Once a story had reached it's natural conclusion, there was no need to hurry to finally get it there.

When he did at last open the door, Johnny stood before him, hands by his side, eyes looking away from him. He stared somewhere straight ahead, but just below and away from him, at something invisible and vague. For a long while, he didn't move, nor speak. Ciampa wordlessly folded his hands over his chest and leaned against the doorway as he waited.

"I am not a bad person," Johnny finally said, with such conviction, it was almost cute. As if saying it out loud would make it unequivocally true, even against all evidence otherwise. Ciampa smiled.

"Who ever said you were?" He responded.

Johnny said nothing more. He continued to stare ahead, not at Ciampa, the muscles in his face visibly tight, lines creasing the skin around his brow and his jaw flexing with tension. It made him look older, more worn down than his normally youthful appearance. Ciampa could see him thinking - no, fighting. Fighting a war inside his head between the part of him that would never have come back to him, not now, at least, would never have even knocked on his door, the part of him that held him back - and the part of him that pushed him forward, that had pushed him to take out Aleister Black in that parking lot, pushed him to punish those who stood in his way instead of just lying down and taking it, and which now pushed him to Ciampa, who had positioned himself with arms aloft and open, ready to catch him.

Ciampa shifted to one side, pulling one shoulder back, opening up the doorway. He gestured inside. "Would you like to come in?"

It took a long time for Johnny to respond. The pull between the warring sides inside of him was almost physical; like a piece of metal caught between two magnets, Ciampa could have sworn he could see Johnny rocking on his heels, back and forth between the two invisible forces. But, finally, he gave a stiff, silent nod, and stepped forward, past Ciampa and into his room. The movement was all it took for one side to begin to win out over the other; just like that, he had fallen into the field of one, the atoms of his very being aligning themselves in turn, and the pull of the other side was too distant, now, to beat out the other and draw him away again.

The door shut with a click. Ciampa turned to Johnny, but made no move beyond that. Again, he waited and watched, all while Johnny stood entirely still, his eyes flickering around the room. He knew his expectations, walking in here, would have been of something different: a dark and gloomy dungeon, complete with bats and cobwebs and elaborate torture devices made of leather and metal. A sight that would tell him, for certain, what it was that he wanted to know: that this was the wrong decision. To confirm his preconceived notions that Ciampa and everyone and everything associated with him was evil and bad, and what everyone else behind every other closed door had told him; that he had managed to stumble and trip onto the wrong path, the one that he had tried so hard to avoid. He would not have expected to see an ordinary hotel room, like all the others, the very same everyone else, Johnny himself included, stayed in, bathed in the same yellow glow of cheap lighting from up above. Not a single cobweb in sight.

Johnny turned to him, slowly, and for the first time looked him in the eye.

"What have I done?" He asked him, and the line was so overused, so cliche, it would have sounded melodramatic if it weren't for the desperation in his voice. The crack at the peak of every word, the waver as he struggled to get the entire sentence out. His eyes told the same story, frantically searching Ciampa's face for some sort of answer, no longer with any of the apprehension or hesitancy he had approached him with once before. He had become a destitute devotee searching for the truth, and Ciampa had become the deity at the golden altar to which he prayed, in the hope he would be delivered the promised light, an answer, a remedy for the conflict that had been breaking him down, bit by bit, from the inside.

"You beat Aleister Black," was all Ciampa said in response. A small twitch just below Johnny's eye registered surprise at the simplicity of his answer.

"I cheated," He retorted, if meekly. An attempt at an argument. Ciampa wondered if it was he who he was trying to reason with, or that other side, the other voice inside his head which had now been banished to the hallway, and had begun to beat on the door Johnny had closed on it.

Ciampa shrugged one shoulder. He had become used to doing such things with only one side, the other now more often than not weighed down by the gold he carried around. "I helped you."

"But I cheated."

"If it were a tag team match, it would have been perfectly legal."

"But it wasn't a tag team match. I cheated," Johnny repeated, his tone more firm as if that, somehow, would strengthen his argument against Ciampa's, but the hint of panic rising in his voice remained audible. He wanted to be told, by the one he had decided _must_ know, who in Johnny's mind had drawn the line between good and bad, that he was right and Ciampa was wrong, that he  _was_ a bad person who had done a bad thing, so he could run off to those he deemed good and holy and receive his punishment accordingly. 

Ciampa shook his head slightly and clicked his tongue at him, smoothly changing tact.

"What did Aleister Black do to you?"

"What?"

"Why did you attack him in the parking lot in the first place?"

Johnny seemed surprised at Ciampa's questioning of him. He paused.

"He...got in the way." It was the first time Johnny had ever admitted, truthfully, his reasons for the attack aloud, Ciampa could tell, and he himself was surprised to hear him say it, especially so bluntly. He felt a warm glow of pride ignite within him - small, but still there nonetheless - the same way it had what felt like so long ago, the first time he had watched Johnny hold high the championships they had won together.

"Right. So you were just getting him out of the way."

"But- I cheated."

"Cheated at a match. Didn't cheat at getting him out of the way." Ciampa watched Johnny's expression tighten again, the battle between the two warring sides in his mind flaring up once more. "You got what you wanted, didn't you?"

"Yes, but-"

"But _what_ , Johnny?" Ciampa took the smallest of steps forward, testing the waters. Johnny inched backwards, shoulders stiffening in trepidation, but he didn't flinch away from him entirely. "What's more important than getting what you want? Than your own happiness?"

"But-" Johnny faltered in his words, and then stopped entirely. Ciampa knew, could see it now, that Johnny was running out of arguments (how many times, after all, could he repeat _'but'_ and  _'I cheated'_?). Ciampa's words were beginning to get through to him; what had begun as only whispers produced in the very corners of Johnny's mind had been strengthened into a gospel, singing out to him. He had sought out a truth, and he had been given it. When Johnny spoke again, his voice was quieter and weaker, now, less certain, the force which drove him to say it slowly being beaten down, "-people- people won't _like_ me-"

 "They won't _what_ ?" If it had been anyone else (and as much as that were the type of overused sentiment Ciampa couldn't stand, it was true, in this case), Ciampa would have laughed at them. It was a child's fear. But it was Johnny, and he  _knew_ Johnny, better than he knew anyone and better than almost anyone else knew Johnny. Johnny was all heart, and a heart ached, more than anything, for love, and blackened and died without it. "They won't _like_ you? Johnny-" Johnny had looked away from him now, eyes shifting to the ground in embarrassment at what he could now see was the admittance of his own insecurity and childishness, but as Ciampa changed his tone, voice growing soft, his eyes flickered up to him once more. "Johnny. If you had let someone - anyone - disliking you, stop you, where would you be right now?"

 Johnny opened his mouth for a moment, but then closed it again just as quickly, and shook his head. 

"Nowhere,” Ciampa answered for him. “And where would you be if you hadn't gone after what you wanted?"

He shook his head again.

"Nowhere." Ciampa repeated. Johnny was looking at the ground again, his shoulders slumped, folded in on himself. 

Ciampa took one step forward, a proper step this time, then paused. Johnny didn't move. He took another step, and then another, and then he was in front of Johnny, still with his head hung, the trampled savior of the good and the saintly. Ciampa placed his hands on his shoulders, his thumbs slotting comfortably into the groove just below the peaks of his collarbones, and Johnny lifted his head to look up at him. His eyes, that could be the warm, gold-hinted type of brown that reminded you of the newborn bark of trees as springtime sun melted away frozen snow, or as they were now, so dark you could almost lose yourself in them, had never been bigger, swallowing up all they saw, Ciampa, and his words, and his assurances. A baby-small lock of hair fell away from his forehead.

"But, Johnny -" Ciampa squeezed with his fingers just slightly as he said his name; a reminder to Johnny of who he was. "You did go after what you wanted. And here you are."

Johnny continued to stare at him. Then, he gave the tiniest, minuscule nod of his head, invisible to anyone not within Ciampa's range.

"And so why shouldn't you keep doing that? Why wouldn't you?"

"But there's no point if I'm alone." The words came out of Johnny's mouth so fast they seemed to fall together and into one another, like he was afraid that if he didn't say them right then and there, he would lose the ability to say them entirely, and never know the answer to that final question that tore at his heart.

"Are you alone?" was all Ciampa said, and Johnny blinked, but didn't look away from him.

The victory was won. A light was reborn behind Johnny's eyes as he looked at him; his heart was satisfied once more with what was before him. Ciampa watched,  _felt_ as the red string that had once drawn and bound them together was at last repaired, the final thread spun, no more thorny, barbed wired-laden barriers between them to fray it anymore, and he knew he could once again tug on one end and know that what he was looking for at the other would return to him. 

"No," Johnny said, and Ciampa knew, he could  _see_ , that he felt the same pull.

A smile grew across Ciampa's face, starting small and blooming into a full-blown grin, touching the muscles from the corners of his mouth to the edges of his eyes. He pulled at Johnny's shoulders and drew him into a hug, the promised embrace, his arms wrapping around him just like they had once before (again, so long ago). They still fit; the edge of his jaw rested against the side of Johnny's head just as it should, Johnny's nose brushing up against the crook of his neck, the expanse of his upper back fitting within his arms. Johnny didn't move at first, his own arms hanging at his side, but after a few seconds Ciampa felt him begin to stir, and then his arms came to wrap around his waist, his hands reaching up to mold against the space between his shoulder blades, a place otherwise untouched by anything other than his title belt and the strikes of an enemy. In his head, Ciampa could pinpoint where each and every individual fingertip lay.

"I missed you, Johnny," he murmured into his hair, which smelled of cleanliness with just a hint of salty sweat. It was a victory cry, the first words spoken after the battle had been won.

There was no immediate response. The cavalry lay quiet, bruised and scarred, wary to claim their win so soon. Then he felt Johnny inhale and exhale, his breath landing warm on the skin of his neck, and relax just that little bit more as he returned the cry, and completed his march back home, "I missed you, too."

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for...a while, to say the least. I think I first began it shortly after Johnny was first revealed as Aleister's attacker, and then sort of just worked it around as the story line has changed. It's never sat right with me, and has been...difficult to work with, to say the very least. (Maybe because it's the first time I've written hurt/comfort in a looong while, to the point I didn't even realize it _was_ such until I went to tag it, haha.) It's been sitting finished for a while now, though, and I felt like I ought to get it out there even if I'm not 100% happy with it because otherwise it's just going to nag at and frustrate me even further. I hope you enjoy, regardless; there's still some nuggets of goodness in there, I think.
> 
> Could be interpreted as slash or not, and so isn't tagged as such. It's up to you. :)
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are much appreciated! :)


End file.
